I left my sister alone in the Forest, and I’ve spent the last decade of my life alternating between assuming that she got lost like Elias and me and died or that she somehow made it back to the village and has lived there safely ever since. Either way, I can’t imagine how she could have ended up here on the island.

Could the girl just be someone who looks like me? Who merely has hair like mine? It’s not like it’s rare to have blond hair. It’s not like I have any extraordinary features that make me stand out in a crowd. Other than my scars, of course.

Laughter trails down the alley behind me, snapping me from my thoughts. I cross my arms over my chest and pull my coat tight, hunching my shoulders. It’s colder here in the shadows, the pinch of winter settling between the cracks.

Someone calls out and I walk faster, staring at my feet and trying to train my senses behind me. Just as I reach the corner there are more shouts and the sound of feet running.

I spin back into a broken doorway and fumble for the knife in my pocket. There’s a group of three men down the road circling a bone-thin girl who barely looks old enough to be a teenager and a tall lanky boy who doesn’t seem much older, both wearing dingy gray tunics that flutter around their knees. One of the men lunges at the boy, throwing a punch, and they tangle. The girl backs away, her eyes wide and lips trembling.

In the shadows of the alley our gazes connect. She’s shorter than I am, petite with slim shoulders and a pointed chin. One of the men reaches for her, wraps a hand around her upper arm, and she cries for help. Her gaze pleading for me to do something.

I grip the knife so hard my fingers ache. The men can’t see me here, huddled against an old concrete pillar just out of their line of sight. The girl fights against her attacker’s grip, screaming now. The boy reaches for her but he’s on his hands and knees on the ground, the two men alternating kicks to his ribs.

My teeth hurt, I’m clenching them so tight, and my heart pounds furiously. I should help them. There’s no one else around and it’s not hard to see that the boy and girl are severely outmatched.

I could sneak along the edge of the alley and try to surprise the men. I could run and search for someone else. I could throw something.

But none of these things would really help—they’d only serve to draw attention to me as well, and I know better than to invite trouble.

I’m rooted in place, unable to make up my mind to help, when two Recruiters stumble past me, their focus on the scuffle down the road rather than on me, crouching in my ragged clothes.

“What’s going on?” one of them shouts in a booming voice. The men scatter away from the pair, leaving the girl shaking, her companion on his side on the ground, groaning as he clutches his abdomen.